The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
To be aerodynamically efficient, airborne mobile platforms such as aircraft and weapons (air vehicles) typically must have highly integrated configurations. These configurations typically need to combine good performance and useful payload with good stability and control characteristics. To achieve this objective, air vehicle configurations should have efficient, effective and robust control effector suites. Removing conventional control surfaces to make the air vehicle aerodynamically more efficient provides a unique challenge in air vehicle stability and control.
Previous work with air vehicles that are tailless and/or hingeless has proven especially challenging in providing vehicle control, especially directional control of the vehicle. A particular problem with hingeless or tailless control is generating directional control at low to moderate angles of attack, with such angles typically being in the range between about 0-4 degrees. At the present time, most aerodynamic methods used for generating directional control at low to moderate angles of attack on an air vehicle involve the use of vertical tails or deflecting a control surface. Providing directional control at low to moderate angles of attack, if any, is a limitation of prior solutions when the vertical tail is removed.
Weight is also an important consideration on many forms of mobile platforms, and particularly airborne mobile platforms such as aircraft. Present day aerodynamic control systems typically employ hinged panels that are deflected to alter the boundary layer flow over a surface of the mobile platform, such as over a trailing edge of a wing. As will be appreciated, hinges and the related linkage and hydraulic or electromechanical actuators needed to employ them can add significant weight to an aircraft, thereby increasing the fuel required for a given flight or mission, or reducing the overall payload of the aircraft.